It’s that time of year again. New Years Resolution time. Most people treat it like a do over. I didn’t do it last year, but I can do it this year. Sadly the cycle tends to repeat itself. The statistics are pretty depressing.
According to the Opinion Corporation of Princeton NJ:
* 62% of people make New Years resolutions
* 8% are always successful
* 19% of people achieve resolutions every other year
* 49% have infrequent success
* 24% NEVER succeed
So what is 2011 going to look like for you this year?
If you want to improve your chances of success, here are 10 tips to improve your chances.
- Write down your goals for the year
- Create goals that are short term and long term. Group goals into 1 week, 1 month, 1 year (or whatever makes sense for you)
- Put your list of goals somewhere that you can see them every day
- If you are trying to lose weight, take a before picture of yourself and post it somewhere that you can see it daily
- Do something on your goals list first thing every morning
- Exercise at least 20 minutes 3 times a week
- Read at least one of the following – The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss or Getting Things Done by David Allen
- Use a service like http://www.habitforge.com to input your goals (it’s a free service that sends you reminders for 3 weeks and forces you to respond to each email reminder. It definitely forces you to think about your goals.)
- If you have a smart phone, find a reminder tool that tracks your todo list both on your phone and on the web. I personally prefer Remember The Milk (often referred to as RTM) - http://www.rememberthemilk.com
- Identify those things that you have been putting off, that you could delegate to someone else. It could be your kids, a student, someone on http://www.fiverr.com , a full time VA or a service such as http://www.fancyhands.com.
Happy New Year!
Rob